This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

For $225, Colangelo's shirts had better fit

The question marks that loom over Raptorland are many and profound. Who'll start at small forward? Can they win a playoff series? And more to the crux of the intrigue, where, in the name of Giorgio Armani, does Bryan Colangelo, the general manager, get those high-collared, high-style shirts? The answer to the latter is here.

Toronto's Chris Bosh, right, and Boston's Paul Pierce meet in Rome with mayor Walter Veltroni on Friday, Oct. 5, 2007, a day before the Raptors and Celtics were scheduled to play an exhibition game. (ANDREW MEDICHINI / AP)

The question marks that loom over Raptorland are many and profound. Who'll start at small forward? Can they win a playoff series? And more to the crux of the intrigue, where, in the name of Giorgio Armani, does Bryan Colangelo, the general manager, get those high-collared, high-style shirts?

The answer to the latter is here, in the shadow of this northern Italian city's 14th-century clock tower, behind the glass door of a tiny storefront in a cobblestoned square. Signor Colangelo, as he's known at Manifatture all'Orologio, is one of the shirtmaker's best customers. He buys his custom-cut, French-cuffed duds in batches of 12 or 15, usually a couple of times a year when he's in town on scouting trips. The shirts are made off the premises, in a nearby village by a 60-something grandmother named Luisa. She can cut and sew approximately one shirt a day, and there is no quickening the pace of production. Though the shop employs several shirtmakers, Luisa alone fills all of Colangelo's orders in the interest of continuity.

But it is the 6-foot-3 Colangelo who designs each of his shirts. Possessed of long enough arms to make it difficult to find good-fitting shirts off the rack, he makes his semi-annual pilgrimage for lengthy deliberations over the shop's glass-topped counter. The choices are dizzying. There are about 1,000 weaves of Egyptian cotton on offer, and more than a dozen styles of buttons, from octagonal to square. The GM even picks the colour of thread for around button holes.

"It's the man who makes the clothes," says Pierluigi Stecconi, one of the shop's associates, stepping away from his duties at the buzzing shop yesterday to show a visitor the operation. "His style is very personal style, a colourful style, a very unique style. He has an idea, and he knows what he wants."

Article Continued Below

Colangelo, who as of yesterday had yet to find the time to visit the shop during the Raptors' week of Italy-based training camp, seems uncomfortable when he's asked to elaborate on his sartorial choices.

"You've got to back up the style," he says, "with a little substance."

With Colangelo, the substance has come to Toronto in quantity. And the style has its fans, too. Chris Bosh, the all-star forward, calls him "the coolest GM in the league, by far."

Colangelo gets his slim-cut suits and bold ties elsewhere. Like an instant-offence sharpshooter off the bench, Manifatture all'Orologio does one thing well, charging about 160 euros a shirt, or about $225, for the trouble. "You don't know how much work is behind a single shirt," says Stecconi. "It's not a factory. ... When something isn't perfect, we do it again."

Colangelo admits he didn't always dress this well. Though he has Italian roots, he's an Ivy League-bred American who says he used to be a "Brooks-Brothers, straight-down-the-middle conservative." But after he met his Italian wife, things changed.

"She was pretty critical of my clothes," he says. "She's my coach."

Colangelo's collars have become a trademark, but they vary. Some of them are button-downs. Some are secured by two buttons, some by three. They're mostly about five centimetres wide, hardly in Don Cherry's league. But they reach toward the ear with panache.

Under a glass case in the shop yesterday, Stecconi showed his guest the cardboard models of different collar designs, each of them labelled with names: the Balletti, the Dino, the Niki. Colangelo's favoured collar most closely resembles the Ippo, which has equestrian connotations in the local tongue – as in, clotheshorse.

Can "the Colangelo" be far behind?.

"To name a collar for Signor Colangelo, I don't know if he would like it," says Stecconi. "But maybe. Maybe next time, when he comes, we will ask him. I think it would be nice, perhaps."

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com